In a Nutshell
- By Kevin Kline


I was a little surprised to find that a SQL Server tool I'd just recently heard of, SQLClue v1.4.1.1, was written and supported by an old buddy of mine, Bill Wunder (blog). 

When I last saw Bill, he and Donald Farmer (blog | twitter | previous SQLMag article) were in the midst of a no-holds-barred judge-off before a panel of Czech supermodels to finally settle the question of who had the most beautiful and alluring man-locks. I had to turn away in disgust to my only reliable friend, a half-full bottle of rot-gut single malt, because, frankly, we [bald] men hate being objectified.  Especially by beautiful European supermodels.  And if it ever happens to me, ever, anywhere, in my entire life, even just once, I intend to act really angry.  [The entire proceeding paragraph is a boldfaced lie. Even the part about the single malt - my beloved Lagavulin is no rot-gut]

SQLClue, What's it do?

SQLClue, in both its graphic and command-line interfaces, has a wide variety of features:

  • Compare configuration and setup information across many SQL Servers. Archive changes over time.
  • Automated change tracking and version of database objects as they change.
  • Data Center Runbook tracking to capture all the processes and tasks that a DBA team is doing, thereby insuring no loss of institutional knowledge.
There's a lot more in the tool. But that might be enough to peak your interest. 

Get It

Take a look at SQLCLue here. Bill has also been really good about updating the docs.  So there's lots of information about the tool on his website. (I won't be writing about SQLClue in SQL Server Magazine, since it's not a free tool.  But I thought you'd enjoy hearing about it here.)

Enjoy,

-Kevin

Twitter @kekline

More content at http://KevinEKline.com


The Awesomeness That Is RoboCopy


I had the opportunity to enjoy a little R&R over the holiday season.  (For the uninitiated, R&R does not mean "rats & rodents", though they might be delicious.  Instead, it means "rest & relaxation" - or as Elmer Fudd would put it "west & wewaxation").  And one of my favorite things to do over those grey winter days is to clean up my office and hard disks, delete or round-file unnecessary files, archive oldies but goodies, and otherwise freshen up for the start of the new year.

I've had the opportunity to try lots of third-party archiving and backup tools and many of them are definitely worth the money.  However, what if you're a dyed in the wool cheapskate like me?

There are several tools to investigate that are worth your time.  Today, I'll tell you about my one favorite - RoboCopy.  (I'll also tell you about a few alternatives in a future blog post.)  RoboCopy enabled me to rather easily create a backup script that copied all of My Documents once and then, on fortnightly intervals, copy only those files which had changed since my last backup.

RoboCopy, which always reminds me of the 1987 movie called RoboCop, is in fact an acronym for "robust copy" and has nothing to do with robots, droids, biots, or cyborgs.  It's a real shame too.

COPY and XCOPY = Bad, RoboCopy = Good


RoboCopy is a part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit (found here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=4544), but also ships with Windows Vista and more recent desktop OSes.  RoboCopy has a variety of stellar features that make it worth adding to your toolkit, even if you don't use it for frequent desktop backups like I'm now doing.  Here's a sampling:


  • self-restarting copies after encountering a failure or network disconnect with a configurable number of retries
  • parameterized scripting
  • logging
  • coppying files above or below a certain age
  • moving files (i.e. deleting them from the source after they are copied)
  • copying any or all of a files attributes and permission settings (including NTFS attributes not copied by utilities like XCOPY)
  • file monitoring, such that when a source file has changed, it will be recopied to the destination
  • file excluding, such that when a target file exists, done bother to overwrite it unless the source file is newer

In Windows 7, you can set a switch to perform a multi-threaded copy, enabling multiple files to be copied simultaneously.

Wanna Learn More?


There's a decent little tutorial for RoboCopy here.  You can find a couple nice command-line reference for RoboCopy here and here.

I like the nice example of a RoboCopy script to copy Analysis Services files written by Denny Lee on the SQLCat team here. 

GUI Is Kind'a Like Lazy Only With A prettier Interface

       
If you're not one for command-lines (I chastize thee!) then you can download a GUI, written by a Microsoft engineer named Derk Benisch, to do the heavy lifting for you here.  If the GUI has any weakness, it is that it lacks good documentation.  You can find out what a single switch is about by hovering the cursor over it, but I really didn't feel comfortable with it until I read the regular RoboCopy help information which fully explained all of the switches.

There are a couple tutorials for the RoboCopy GUI, such as this one and this one.

What'd He Do? What'd He Do?

 So what did my RoboCopy script look like?  First, the requirements.  I wanted a backup routine that'd make a copy of "My Documents"(the source) and copy it to an external hard disk called "Maxtor" (the target).  I also wanted the copy process to restart in the event of failure and to copy all of the file attributes, while keeping the Last Date Modified unchanged.  Finally, since I have many files that don't change much, I wanted the copy process to grab everything the very first time but then to only grab those files that'd changed since my last copy process thereafter.  Make sense?

Here's the script:

ROBOCOPY mydocuments maxtor /E /COPYALL /Z /R:3 /W:10 /LOG:robolog.txt /QUIT /XO
Here's what each switch means:

  • mydocuments = source
  • maxtor = target
  • /E = copy all subdirectories even empty ones
  • /COPYALL = copies all attributes
  • /Z = copies in restartable mode
  • /R:3 = retry up to three times
  • /W:10 = wait10 seconds between retries
  • /LOG... = log all operations to the specified file
  • /QUIT = exits the command-line when done
  • /XO = excludes older files if they already exist on the destination, unless the source has the same file with a newer date
So that's a quick and easy archival copy process using ROBOCOPY.  Next time, I'll show you some alternative tools and utilities that you might prefer.

Toodles,

-Kev

 Twitter @kekline

 More content at http://KevinEKline.com/

 


THE .NET TEAM IS LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD APPS!


Time is running out on this cool contest for developers who are making exciting things happen with the .NET Framework and Visual Studio, Windows, Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, or SharePoint. Got a solution that is interesting, powerful and unique?  Then share it asap!


Why? The winners get their choice of a 15-day Galapagos Islands Adventure or a new Smart Car!


That's pretty amazing if you ask me!  There are two ways to win:

    * Judges Choice: Impress the panel of technology industry leaders and Microsoft gurus for the trip, the car, a home entertainment system or an internet tablet PC.

    * People's Choice: Get everyone you know to vote for your solutions.  The top vote getters win one of three uber-cool Archos 320GB Media Internet Table PCs.

 

Visit the ‘Expect the Unexpected’ site (www.DotNETstories.com) to see what other solutions are in the running and the interesting developers who've created them.




DTLoggedExec is a great add-in that replaces DTExec within SSIS that adds very good logging. Davide has reported on his blog (http://sqlblog.com/blogs/davide_mauri/) that the product is very stable and very nearly ready to come out of beta. Read about the latest release here - http://sqlblog.com/blogs/davide_mauri/archive/2009/11/28/dtloggedexec-0-2-3-0-beta-published.aspx. Enjoy, -Kevin

Script Updates From Ola

Ola Hallengren has created some fine database maintenance automation scripts and he supports them with frequent refinements.  In his latest round of updates, here are a few things to look at:

Ola's homepage is located here, with release notes located here and documenation here.  If you're simply looking for the script, you can find it here.

Thanks for your continued support, Ola!

Other Tools to Examine

I also want to redirect your attention to Raoul Illyes' excellent wait state analysis tool.  I know there was quite a lot of talk about using wait states to troubleshoot SQL Server problems at the PASS 2009 Summit.  So if you attended any of those popular sessions, take a look at Raoul's free utility here.

 

Enjoy!

-Kev

[10/27/2009]

SQL Sets

Posted by: Kevin Kline
POST A COMMENT

Check out this new data collection tool from Mike Morris available at http://sqlsets.com. SQL Sets makes it easy to quickly capture and organize query-based snapshots of your SQL Server data into a single, self-contained file called a Portable Data Set Document that can be saved, shared compared and annotated. Take a look and let me know what think! -Kevin Twitter @kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com/
My friend and fellow MVP John Paul Cook recently blogged about a cool new tool from Microsoft called Disk2Vhd, at http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_cook/archive/2009/10/09/physical-to-virtual-conversion-disk2vhd.aspx. The tool enables you to migrate a physical machine (PM) into a virtual machine (VM), while the PM is running. You can find Dsik2Vhd at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx. John also has great information about VM migration at http://sqlblog.com/blogs/john_paul_cook/archive/2009/08/29/migrating-a-virtual-machine-from-virtual-pc-to-hyper-v-and-back.aspx. Note that John's content relates to Hyper-V. So if you're looking for VMWare tools, keep looking. Of course, if you find similar free tools for VMWare, let us know by posting here! Thanks, -Kev Twitter @kekline More content at http://KevinEKline.com/
Please join me for SQL Saturday #21 coming up on Saturday, October 17th.  There are over 50 sessions on tap with great speakers from the area and across the nation.  Some of the notable speakers include:

  • Andy Leonard (blog here)
  • Andy Warren (blog here)
  • Brian Knight (blog here)
  • Buck Woody (blog here)
  • Chad Miller (blog here)
  • Joe Celco (blog here)
  • Joe Webb (blog here)
  • Jonathan Kehayias (blog here)
  • Kendal Van Dyke (blog here)
  • Ken Simmons (blog here)
Not only do we have SQL Saturday coming up, but Andy & company put together five world class seminars the week leading up to it! Use code "KKLINE" to get a 20% discount if you register for two or more seminars!

Seminars will be held at the Embassy Suites in Altamonte Springs, FL. Each seminar is $149 and includes a full lunch. Seating is limited, register today!

Attendees of my seminar will get a free copy of my book, Database Benchmarking: A Practical Approach for Oracle and SQL Server, plus other free goodies from my employer, Quest Software. As an added note of explanation, Buck's excellent seminar centers around detecting and troubleshooting performance problems, while my seminar focuses on writing high-performance and highly scalable SQL and Transact-SQL code.  Why not sign up for both of them to get comprehensive education on the entire process of writing great code, deploying it, and monitoring it for continued excellent performance?

Finally, I'll be speaking at user groups in the area leading up to SQL Saturday.  If you can join me at my seminar or at SQL Saturday, maybe one of these other events better fits your schedule:

  • Tuesday, Oct 13, Tampa SQL Server User Group (http://www.tampasql.com)
  • Wednesday, Oct 14, Orlando SQL Server User Group (http://www.opass.org)
  • Friday, Oct 15, Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (http://jacksonville.sqlpass.org)
I h0pe to see you there!

-Kevin

 Twitter @KEKline

 More content at http://KevinEKline.com

[9/30/2009]

Trace Analyzer

Posted by: Kevin Kline
POST A COMMENT

I'm hearing good things about TraceAnalyzer, a tool that reads SQL Server trace files and allows you to view and sort the data. It's free and can be helpful, according to all the reports I've heard. You might want to check it out at http://www.dbsophic.com/traceanalyzer. I'm a big fan of Bill Graziano's ClearTrace tool (available at http://www.scalesql.com/cleartrace/download.aspx). So if you've tried both, I'd like to hear your assessment of the two tools. Many thanks, -Kev
There was a time when health information was merely a collection of facts about you. You visited a doctor on the 17th because of a sore throat.  You had your appendix removed when you were a grade-schooler.


Now, in the 21st century, information is increasingly used to drive business value.  In a sense, information is becoming an asset.  And as many of us have seen with the antics on Wall Street, any asset can be abused for personal and possibly unethical gain.  Legislative bodies around the globe have expended a lot of energy on regulating the use and access of health data, such as the well-known HIPAA legislation (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) here in the United States.  But despite the existence of this law, we're still facing some huge hurdles. 

First, HIPAA doesn't handle all problems related to health data.  For example, new regulations need to be devised to fully protect individuals from exploitation of information stored their DNA sequences.  Just a generation ago, no one could possibly know if you held a genetic predisposition to, just as an example, renal failure.  Now, simple and quick tests exist to identify key genetic markers for such a predisposition.  Could this data be used to deny or charge exorbitant rates for medical coverage?  Life insurance? A job?

Second, health care (at least in the USA) is decidedly low-tech, despite much pushing and prodding from our government.  Overall, the health care industry (and doctors in particular) has been reluctant to cultivate the power of the Internet to deliver information to anyone, anywhere.  My wife was employed at one of the best hospitals in the southeast United States (Vanderbilt Children's Hospital), where they needed large, redundant administrative staff to transcribe every thing about a patient's visit into their medical systems.  Doctors refused to do it themselves (though younger doctors were noticeably less reluctant to use computers) and many important computerized medical devices (think of MRIs, CAT scanners, electrocardiograms, etc.) offered no integration at all.  Huge amounts of floor space are devoted to maintaining so much paper medical information that it could literally be measured in tons better than pages.

Whereas much of the recovery from recessions during the early years of both the Clinton and Bush II administrations were attributed to huge improvements in information technology, none of that has matured yet for the health care industry.  In fact, almost every business ecosystem in the United States has been revolutionized except health care!  The system is, in effect, still a sick care system rather than a real health care system.  And efforts to computerize it are much the same as data processing activities of the 1960's - taking easy, repeatable actions and having a machine do them at high speed.  But the real promise of IT has yet to be realized in health care.  Imagine a time when a data mining application could show the slow and steady development of a behaviorally-influenced disease, like Type 2 Diabetes or coronary disease or IBS, and provide plenty of early warning signs plus knowledge and support and tracking for convalescence and recovery.  As SQL Server professionals, we know that good data mining can reveal that sort of issue and one thousand more.  Conversely, consider the situation where an individual sees three different doctors for the same problem.  How do you know that you're getting personalized and relevant information instead of the latest prescription drug brought in by the pharmaceutical representative?  I can tell you in my own experience with heart problems (first documented here) that I'd seen over a dozen doctors within five years time, and yet only the very latest doctor of the whole bunch pointed out the correlation between GERD, sleep apnea, and heart problems.

Add to this the fact that even those medical institutions that are using medical IT systems are firmly stuck in the 20th century.  I've seen a lot of medical IT systems and even the very best of them are still clunky, lame client-server applications that are very ineffective at modeling the business.  Many of them attempt to implement anachronistic and overweening standards like HL7, which is essentially analogous to commuting to your job in an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer.

I've decided to get ahead of this curve and I'm encouraging you to do the same.  Maybe it's just my time as a community organizer for PASS, but my first inclination is to look for like-minded individuals who support the same goals and aspirations I do.  I suggest that you start with the Health Data Rights organization at http://www.healthdatarights.org/ - join the movement to own and control your own health data and make it work for your betterment.  Other places to begin your activism include http://www.google.com/health/ and Tim O'Reilly's wonderful blog about Gov2.0 at http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/what-does-government-20-mean-to-you.html. 

Let me know what you think!

-Kevin

Twitter @kekline

More at http://KevinEKline.com

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